


A Planting Season

by ssbuttfluff



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 16:30:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12088896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssbuttfluff/pseuds/ssbuttfluff
Summary: Soulmate flower crown au told in 100-word snippets.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty stupid, but I like the idea.

When Will was four years old he watched adults. In grocery stores he watched them carefully unwind scarves, mindful of branches and vines. In gas stations he watched the back of the clerk’s head when she turned to grab his father’s cigarettes, shedding a petal under the cheap blast of air conditioning. In the shop where his father worked, Will watched the daily parade of roses and lilies and marigolds. It wasn’t until he was older that it occurred to Will to ask his father about the flowers that almost all the other adults had growing out of their heads.


	2. Chapter 2

When Will was five, his father caught him staring at their elderly neighbor’s daisies.

“They’re soul crowns,” he told Will. “You’ll grow one too, someday. If you meet your soulmate.”

Will processed this as his father buckled him into the car. Flowers growing out of your head didn’t sound particularly nice. Or comfortable. Will waited until his dad was in the driver’s seat to ask, “Where’s your soul crown?”

They passed four blocks before Rob Graham answered.

“Some folks don’t work that way. Mine never grew in.”

For the first time he could remember, Will realized his father was lying.


	3. Chapter 3

He learned more about the crowns in school. As young as kindergartners were meeting their soulmates, little baby buds curling out beneath bangs and dustings of pollen over small ears.

Flowers said more about your soulmate than they said about you, Will learned. If your soulmate was happy, you might grow tulips. If your soulmate was quiet, maybe clover. But it was usually more complicated. Soul crowns _almost_ let people read each other like Will could read them. They gave just enough information for you to realize how little you knew a person.

Still, Will preferred flowers to eye contact.


	4. Chapter 4

For a while, Will didn’t give much thought to soul crowns. He finished school, became a policeman, finished more school, and went to teach for the FBI. Will worked hard under Director Jack Crawford to construct explanations for why people worked the way they did.

It was an easy existence. Will bought himself a home and filled it with dogs. He spent his days teaching prospective agents and reading case files. Evenings were for grading papers and more case files.

One night Will noticed, in an absent sort of way, that nearly all the killers he studied had soul crowns.


	5. Chapter 5

What kind of person did you have to be, to flower to a sociopath?

“I think you’re giving the crowns too much power,” his colleague Alana said, the first time he voiced his thoughts. “The person you flower with doesn’t determine who you are.”

“Not a fan of predestination?”

“I’m…” She frowned. “I’m a fan of humanism.”

“Others shape who we become.”

“We as individuals have value and agency, and I don’t think a soul crown can change that. But I really don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Will glanced at her uncovered ( _unflowered_ ) head and said nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, Jack put Will on active duty. Later that day, Jack explained to him that Will was unreliable, unstable, and unable to continue work without professional help. It was a day full of mixed signals.

That night everyone in Will’s house got a bath.

His father had left him an ancient steel laundry tub. Will lined up his dogs, and they waited patiently as he worked his way through a series of lather-rinse-repeat.

“I wish I could grow crowns with you,” he told a wolfish-looking mutt named Paprika.

Paprika sneezed in his face. Will took that as agreement.


End file.
